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Let us continue with excerpts from Saint Augustine’s “The City of God,” where the wise Bishop expounds on the need for repentance and redemption through living a virtuous lifestyle, remembering God as the key to entering eternal bliss in Heaven’s abode.“For by it our Savior designed to teach us that, however righteously we live in this life of infirmity and darkness, we still commit sins for the remission of which we ought to pray, while we must pardon those who sin against us that we ourselves also may be pardoned.”“Nevertheless, not even great sins themselves, sins from which we must flee with a total reformation of life, are forgiven to those who pray, unless they observe the appended precept, ‘as ye also forgive your debtors.’ For if the very small sins which attach even to the life of the righteous be not remitted without that condition, how much further from obtaining indulgence shall those be who are involved in many great crimes, if, while they cease from perpetrating such enormities, they still inexorably refuse to remit any debt incurred to themselves, since the Lord says, ‘But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.’” “‘It must be admitted, that those who are thus received into the eternal habitations are not of such a character that their own life would suffice to rescue them without the aid of the saints, and consequently in their case, especially does mercy rejoice against judgment.’”“In that city, all the citizens shall be immortal, men now for the first time enjoying what the holy angels have never lost. And this shall be accomplished by God, the Most Almighty Founder of the city. For He has promised it, and cannot lie, and has already performed many of His promises, and has done many unpromised kindnesses to those whom He now asks to believe that He will do this also.”“It is He who made also man himself upright, with the same freedom of will, an earthly animal, indeed, but fit for Heaven if he remained faithful to his Creator, but destined to the misery appropriate to such a nature if he forsook Him.”
